MED858: REFLECTIONS ON READING

THE DESIGN OF LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS (BRANSFORD, BROWN AND COCKING)

CHANGES IN EDUCATIONAL GOALS
Schooling in the 1800s is what I have learnt to be called Survival Driven Education. In the 1900s, schools are seen as factories, thus the era of Efficiency Driven Education. Today, we are moving into Ability Driven Education, as we learn to appreciate individual differences and talents. I am beginning to appreciate how the evolution of our local education system is aligned to what has been described in this paper.

LEARNER-CENTERED ENVIRONMENTS
In the study of the Kamehameha School in Hawaii, the learner-centered teachers were able to obtain significant improvement in their students’ reading performance. I have observed how Chinese lessons were conducted for the weaker students in the banded group. The teacher often used English Language to explain Chinese phrases, which I felt was pretty cool. Similarly, for Sciences, we should bring in everyday examples that students can identify with to create a learner-centre environment. Like in the topic Moment of the Force, the wheelbarrow and the crow-bar are the very frequently mentioned examples to illustrate the level system. What are the chances of a typical HDB dweller like our student ever come across a wheelbarrow or a crow-bar? No wonder Science is boring!

KNOWLEDGE-CENTERED ENVIRONMENTS
It is important to understand the knowledge-centered environments also include an emphasis of sense-making and helping students meta-cognitive. Thus this great experiment by schools to go into the home-room system. Teachers would be able to create their knowledge-centered environments for students to immerse themselves in.
Many schools have since reverted to the former, which is the present classroom system which many schools are adapting. But it does not have to be all or none. In my school, I am a strong advocate of the IP room system. So far, we have a Math room, an EL/Lit room, a Humanities room and a History room, and we shall try to have a dedicated CPA Lab for the CPA teachers; there will be computer labs for all other subjects.

ASSESSMENT-CENTERED ENVIRONMENTS
This has always been the overrated scapegoat whenever our education system is scrutinized and criticized. But Singaporeans are pragmatic people. So what gets measured gets done. This is still happening in neighbourhood schools. Schools that have consistently great academic results have just got themselves a golden ticket out of this rat race and now “have permission” to venture on to greener pastures like the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme or the Integrated Programme or the Through-Train Programme.
Nevertheless, we must be mindful that dynamic assessments for learning is also a powerful tools for Teaching and Learning, and should not often associate assessments to summative ones like Mid Year and End of Year Exams driven environments.

COMMUNITY-CENTERED ENVIRONMENTS
The community adding value to the school is not something that many schools are enjoying. Sad but true that the most scarce resource that Singaporeans have is time, money being the second one (“money always not enough”). So in light of such scarcity mentality, many would adapt the “what’s in it for me” approach. But there are always some great (far but few) individuals and organizations that do good to the schools in creating community-centered environments. I have personally come across individuals that donated tens of thousands of dollars to the school for student scholarships but would prefer to remain anonymous.

CONCLUSION
All four perspectives are important in the design of learning environments. It is the degree to which a school is student centered, knowledge centered, assessment centered and community centered that makes each learning environment different and unique.